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We're all expressions of a vast ocean of being, waving at us with each thing and individual that we encounter. “Here I am” says this wonderful world and let us receive it with open arms whatever surprise it may bring 🌊❄

I would like to share a personal story with you, a tale about the value of this moment.

At this moment, throughout the world people die from an anomalous sickness. Even though the majority will oppose a solid health guard against it, not everybody will have the physical condition to survive. Some of our beloved grandmothers, fathers, wives and brothers, friends, rivals and colleagues will eventually die as a result.

How would it be like – dying? Even though there is no hurry in finding out, I pondered over this question for quite some time in the recent years. Mainly because I was confronted with death myself.

It has been 2 years now that my mother Svetlana has met her fate. She knew it coming a long time before.

I remember clearly when she sat down in my room – I was around 15 – and told me with tears in her eyes about the growing tumor in her breast. At that time I didn't understand her desperation. She was here with us and seemed completely healthy. After all she was the strongest woman I know of, a key pillar of my family, full with the sparkling expression of life's passions.

In fight with her disease she changed her lifestyle, her diet, her bodywork. She had the tumour removed twice from her chest, she underwent radiation therapy, but it didn't keep the cancer from reaching her lymphoid system and the brain. In her last year, I saw her health deteriorating slowly but unstoppably, visiting her more and more often in hospital.

I spent a lot of time in conversation with her, suspecting that her time may be limited, and we often ended up discussing the meaning of life, the art of love, sciences, philosophies...

Of course we shared some emotional moments as well. Like when an angry argument got out of hand and allowed us to be sincerely mad at each other. Another time it was affection that found its way to be expressed. Or when my brother Seb and me took her out on a walk and had a meditative time vaping weed. All of it was important in its own right. Even more, I felt the weight of every word I shared with her, knowing that what wouldn't be shared now may stay unshared forever.

Soon it surprised me to see the relationship between my parents change. I always remembered them arguing fiercely since childhood, but even they seem to have found peace. Suddenly witnessing how they treated each other with genuine care felt like the long-awaited healing of a wound, bringing me back the parent's love that once created me.

As time got short, lingering feelings were expressed that used to be forgotten, open words were shared that waited long to be spoken. And intimate moments were lived literally as if they were the last to live. She died at home, just some days after New Year's Eve, at the age of 50. When I visited her the day before, she was almost completely paralysed. Still she managed a smile when her opening eyes saw me, a shimmer of joy that she could not express with words anymore. I hugged her and stayed by her side for some time, talking to her, caressing her tired body. She could not speak, but I saw her happiness to see me, the boy that she had raised, the man that I have become. A sudden horror overcame me, knowing that she is soon to depart to the unknown. Even that I accepted, just like my anger, my sadness, my self-pity. Of course she would be alright dying, simply returning to the idle state of being that we all once were. That I knew. And also that it would be me that needed to go on living without her everyday presence...

I will always remember her words, ensuring me with so much delight that she was content with the life she had lived. That she had a wonderful student's life, that she always knew she would have two boys (and there we are), that she was thankful for all the wonderful people she met with her seminar work, for all the adventures she went on. And I am sure that this was how she really felt. Anyone around could see that she had come to terms with her soon end, at least as an individual.

When I said farewell and left my parent's house, it would be the last time I would see her alive. And it would be alright.

I see the limited time that I spend with her as a bliss. And I strongly believe that this is the opportunity that death can provide for us all, when we accept it. Because the realisation of your mortality does this curious thing, it gives room to the essential, to what really matters in our relationships and empowering us with sincerity. At last everybody has to die, even though we forget it in our daily lives. The body that carries us is mortal and expires one day. We owe it gratitude for every hour that it endures the stressful environment of this world, as long as it does. And when our body grows weary of this world, all that we can do is letting it go with its deserved appreciation.

Of course I feel this huge hole in my heart not having my mom around anymore. But the sadness, if expressed, eventually fades and is replaced with gratitude. Death as such, just like departure, is an event that should not be regretted.

In a sense, it is the lifestyle that we unconsciously chose hundreds of millions of years ago. By giving birth to sons and daughters and dying yourself, humankind is constantly renewing itself, generation after generation after generation, experiencing life always freshly with renewed excitement. And of course my mother is not gone completely, as my brother and I carry forth her physical and ideational heritage. She lives forth in every person that she conversed with. In a way, we all are what is left of her and it's this that I will keep in honour.

I believe that it should be the right of every person to die in a humane way, with their beloved ones around to take leave of you. I want to offer you my mother's story so that you may make up your own mind. Because in the end, you're the only one that knows what really matters.